Opera is well known for pushing out versions of its browser to a wide variety of platforms ranging from the Nintendo Wii to various mobile phone platforms. Google Android is no exception, Opera Mini just launched for the open source mobile operating system, and the load times are snappy as ever.

Of course, much of Opera’s secret to loading pages lightning fast on mobile devices lies with its decision to cache content on its own servers and reformat it before loading it to the mobile device. During the caching process, content is compressed into a proprietary format called OBML (Opera Binary Markup Language), which allows the page to download at least twice as fast.

Opera Mini also maintains a connection with the proxy server which continuously loads content during a session. That reduction in establishing new connections also benefits mobile users in search of a quick fix.

Right now Opera Mini for Google Android is in beta and there are a few bugs, such as oversized text boxes and a tendency for JavaScript-heavy pages to load in their simple HTML modes.

Opera’s focus on speed is right in line with Google’s Chrome browser which focused entirely on making the user interface fast and page loads faster. Speed seems to be the next competition point between browser makers and will likely play a significant role as the latest iteration of the browser wars ramp up.

One disappointing part about Opera Mini and a other mobile browsers is a lack of Flash support. That’s why YouTube typically has its own application on mobile devices so that the content can actually render. Of course, serving rich and dynamic content up through a mobile network is still relatively new so Adobe is continuing to scramble to meet the need with a lightweight version of the Flash player.

Overall it looks like Opera Mini for Google Android has some advantages and it might make sense to use, especially for some quick news updates.

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Entry was posted on Tuesday, November 25th, 2008 at 10:40 pm under Cell phones, Internet, Technology.

Read more entries by Matt Jansen.
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